


Star Wars: Failsafe

by JonBB8



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 07:21:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18566626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonBB8/pseuds/JonBB8
Summary: In the days before the events of Return of the Jedi, the Emperor embarks on a secretive mission with his enforcer. They will find their abilities tested in punishing and unique ways as the mission quickly falls apart...





	Star Wars: Failsafe

Darth Sidious stared out of the viewport of his shuttle. His hood was down around his shoulders, and the white threads that remained of his hair moved in the air conditioning. 

 

Visible through the reinforced viewport was a scalded moon that was home to his reason for rare travel offworld of Coruscant. Each pass round its planet brought the unnamed satellite through an agony of sunlight that made it only barely capable of supporting human life – as the lethal toll taken on Imperial labour teams proved.

 

He grimaced as he considered the hours ahead. The minutiae of running a galaxy had rankled more than usual of late. Confused visions, discord and uncertainty marred his meditation. Time away from the shrine beneath the palace meant time away from sorting through his premonitions and plans before the crucial date arrived. The second Death Star. The son of Skywalker. If the boy could be pressed into service alongside – or in place of – his father, Palpatine would have a mobile war platform to keep peace among the masses, and a young apprentice eager to handle more precise matters. 

 

But no apprentice was to be trusted with matters such as that which faced him now, not alone at any rate. This was personal, and very discreet. He and Vader had departed Coruscant unobserved, and would arrive at the blasted lump of rock now before Sidious separately. Hence the repurposed Republic era troop shuttles each was to set down in, sacrificing the comforts and efficiency of Lambda shuttles.

 

Sidious narrowed his eyes and reached out with his senses. Toward the ancient, scoured ball of dirt that now dominated the shuttle’s passenger area starboard view, and the power plant and manufacturing works he knew to be there. Focusing, he could see the power plant control building in his mind’s eye. It was seemingly deserted – but for a tall black figure that stood still as death in front of the plant.

 

-

 

Vader stood beneath the system’s punishing sun. His cape hung motionless in the hot still air, and his faceplate was angled straight ahead toward the control complex while his mind traveled elsewhere. He remembered another time, years ago now, staring out on stars and a fleet and seeing neither, fists almost trembling. The day he had learned he had a son. That Skywalker had a son.

 

From that moment the boy’s destiny had been sealed – and Vader’s with it. Whether dying at his father’s feet or rising to his side to destroy the Emperor, the dark side filled Luke Skywalker’s future. Ever since the boy’s existence had been made known to Vader, he had felt strengthened, centered. He had felt more than an apprentice or an enforcer. Long neglected ambitions had returned. He saw clearer than ever into the future, into what could be. And after so many years, he had become a master at concealing his own true thoughts from his master when necessary. In the instant of promising Sidious the ultimate test of his loyalty – kill his son should he not turn – the fire of aspiration had secretly kindled. If the boy does turn… dispatch the gnarled old mystic, and raise up pillars of strength to ensure peace in the galaxy – and at their foundation, two Skywalkers, ablaze with the Force.

 

His faceplate lifted toward the sun. Darth Sidious was approaching.

 

-

 

A stream of data began appearing on the console set into the shuttle’s seating area, formally worded updates on heading and atmosphere from the sole veteran Royal Guardsman hand-picked to deliver Palpatine to the moon. The heat was higher than expected planetside, and the air drier, Palpatine noticed. As the pocked surface of the moon swung rapidly closer, and the vessel juddered with the effort of entering the atmosphere, the Emperor rose. His balance was undisturbed as the deck beneath him vibrated and rocked. He lifted his hood over his ruined head and face.

 

-

 

Vader had already walked past the control building and the vast cooling towers of the plant to wait at the dirty landing platform when the shuttle set down and its ramp lowered. Sidious emerged and strode down, moving faster than usual and raising a clawed hand as he reached Vader.

 

‘Lord Vader. Why are there no life forms here?’

 

‘I have seen no sign of the work crews, or the foremen,’ Vader intoned. ‘Neither have I felt any presence on this moon in the last two hours.’

 

They had walked some distance from the landing pad, and Sidious was casting impatient glances into the open doors and windows of the complex, when something stopped Vader in his tracks and he turned. A metallic sound, or grinding gears – the Royal Guardsman was exiting the shuttle now, just stepping onto the ramp. 

 

Vader instinctively threw himself across his master and tensed, his senses heightening, half a second before blinding light silently filled the world and was followed by a deafening roar. His feet dug into the hard earth, and his cape whipped across his back and helmet before being shredded and torn away. All this happened in an instant, and then he was upright, looking around for aggressors. Droids? Sabotage?

 

Sidious came snarling back to his feet, his hood and robes also lacerated, hanging in dirt-caked streamers from him. Vader could feel the dark side swell in both of them as debris from the shuttle clattered down, the space where the vessel had been empty and blackened.

 

He turned to his master to speak, but was drowned out by a second detonation from the other side of the compound – his own ship exploding in a rain of metal and an uproar of rocks and dirt from around where he had landed.

 

‘We are attacked!’ rasped Sidious. Both held their lightsabers, though neither had activated them yet. Vader looked to the sky for hostile ships, but he was already expecting what he saw –empty sky, cloudy and polluted from the moon’s foul smelling geysers and slate grey despite the beating of a too-close sun. Still there was no sight or sense of any being, other than themselves.

 

His gimlet eyes glinting red and his teeth bared, Sidious had also come up empty after drawing on his power and scrutinising the surroundings for an enemy.

 

‘I will sweep the buildings, master,’ Vader said.

 

‘No. Search the debris for signs of sabotage. I will see what has become of our work force.’

 

-

 

Looming in the watery light, the rags of his cape hanging down, he took the stairs down from the canteen and ducked under pipes and grimy bulkheads before entering the dorm area Sidious had made for.

 

Still a mechanic, Vader had made short work of his inspection and found no telltale substances remaining among the remains of the two ships. What’s more the chassis of each was relatively intact – relatively as in they remained as lengths of metal strewn for hundreds of metres around. It was the fuel tanks and engines that had been almost completely vaporised. What’s more there were no prints leading in and out of the miserable compound. Meanwhile the heat had increased and would probably be unbearable to anyone who didn’t possess preternatural levels of endurance.

 

He passed through a long chamber in which deactivated droids were lined up against the wall in a reclining position, as if interred. They were of a design he didn’t recognise, with plain off-white faceplates marked in tribal or maybe shamanic patterns. Perhaps they were some kind of worker drone or defense outfit used by previous outposts. An evil smell hung in the air.

 

After a series of corridors, halls and stairwells he found Darth Sidious stood over what remained of the work crew and staff. Not only were they corpses, but had been for some time. They were desiccated and skeletal.

 

‘When was the last time this installation reported to the sector overseer?’ he asked, half to himself. 

 

Sidious, the deformed musculature around his mouth bunched and taut, pulled his eyes from the dead staff members. ‘It is a small assignment. They report yearly. Their next communication was due in two rotations.’

 

It was unlike Sidious to have such detailed knowledge of miniscule backwater operations under the Empire’s purview – of which there were countless examples. Judging the situation to have deteriorated well beyond either man’s expectations, Vader said, ‘Why are we here, master?’

 

His eyes back on the remains at his feet, his master said, ‘this is more than an assembly plant. There is a computer programmer here I have come to see.’

 

‘Can this worker not be summoned to Coruscant?’

 

A tight grimace, and then, ‘I am afraid not. Though they do not know it, they can never be permitted to leave this moon again, and cannot be permitted to die until the work is completed. And the work can only be considered completed upon my personal inspection. This is not the first time I have been here, Lord Vader.’

 

‘Then let us see what has become of this person and their work.’

 

Sidious looked at him, threads of hair plastered to his pale head and the tatters of his robe barely concealing dull black armour. He nodded.

 

-

 

The Emperor seethed as he led Vader down through winding stairwells and gloomy corridors toward his objective. Bad enough that he should have to attend to such things in person, that his appointed moffs and governors were too wrapped up in internecine disagreement and petty personal ambition to effectively repress the Rebellion in a decentralised fashion. That other than his lethal right hand man, he had only sycophantic agency chiefs and mindless murderers at his disposal since Tarkin’s death.

 

If only people had the foresight to be selfless and submit happily to our jurisdiction. For the good of the entire galaxy.

 

His mind strayed to the shrine beneath the palace, to the hints of promises to be teased out of the eddying currents of the dark side. To the hours and hours immersed in the Force, the gates to wisdom and immortality just beyond his questing senses. Not so far beyond, now. But to truly understand the mysteries of the Sith, we must first have peace and order.

 

Somewhat calmed, his anger again sharpened to a point, bringing focus and perspective, he found himself brought up short. The narrow corridor ended at a door that should open to his handprint and just one other, but the console was dark, either spoiled or drained. Suspicion twisted his face into a rictus, and he flung out both hands to send the door exploding out of its hinges and across the office inside with the Force. It lodged in the far wall near the floor, and Vader marched in front of him to sweep the room. Ever the bodyguard.

 

The only thing in the room apart from defunct servers, tattered notes and several computers long powered down and mulched with old dust and rot, was yet another heap of humanoid remains. The programmer was long dead. Even three levels below the surface the heat was stifling, and even Palpatine grew uncomfortable with the oppressive atmosphere.

 

‘Search the body, and any other clothes, and the cabinets and crates,’ he snapped, turning to rifle through a desk, pushing aside heaps of paper. To Vader’s credit, he didn’t question why the two most feared beings in an entire galaxy were stood in an abandoned building, on a depressing moon in the middle of almost wild space, sifting through rotten folders and crumbling jackets. He set to as well, and was making for the adjoining living quarters when Sidious’ hand touched cold plasteel in the back of a drawer. He emitted a quiet noise of victory. He withdrew and uncased a backup datapad, tapping at its surface to activate it.

 

Nothing happened. He tapped again. Checking the back of the datapad, he found a taped note dated ten months before. Dropping the device back down on the desk he felt defeat and fury well up in him. The papers and debris on the floor whipped around the room, igniting one by one and bursting into flames. The desk, chairs and the remains of the programmer were buffeted against the walls, cracking the plaster. Clenching his fists he brought himself in check, dust and ash raining down onto the floor and around him. Vader watched him motionlessly from the doorway.

 

‘We are confounded in our mission, Lord Vader.’

 

Vader didn’t speak.

 

‘We must find a ship. The foremen should have one. It is three rotations before system administrators will investigate the missing report and send an inspector.’

 

As they hurried from the room and began to ascend the stairs, Palpatine decided to confide in Vader one of the small number of key plans he had set in motion unbeknownst to his fellow Sith. ‘I came to retrieve a code created by that programmer. Ten months ago it was nearing completion. But it has not been backed up since that time. Judging by the state of decay in that room the death of everyone here accounts for that.’

 

‘They did not die violently.’

 

‘Yes I know.’ The Emperor turned to Vader. ‘I believe our employees were victims of sudden and deadly rises in temperature due to orbital peculiarities in this system. My guardsman logged several unusual atmospheric conditions on approach. Let us secure our departure so that we do not meet the same destiny.’

 

He wondered if Vader’s respirator and suit would protect him better should there be a sudden and devastating heat wave. He then wondered how easy it would be to wrest the respirator off his ally and make use of it himself.

 

At that moment Vader spoke again. ‘What was the code for, and why can we not recreate it from the worker’s progress?’

 

‘The second Death Star has a failsafe. Obviously I am certain of the Rebellion’s defeat once they are lured to the forest moon. But were they to succeed in destroying the battle station I have arranged for their demise at their own hands. The code was to be programmed into the battle station’s central computer and a chain of nearby signal buoys, and rigged to transmit should the host servers be destroyed. However, once it has begun transmitting, it will attack its new host and continue destroying all computer programmes and artificial intelligences it comes across while spreading virally. You are wondering what of Imperial programming. It recognizes our signal and bypasses it. The rebels’ fleet will shut down, their bases will become isolated, and they will slowly die.’

 

‘You have planned for victory even beyond our deaths, master?’

 

‘No. If there is a threat from the Rebellion I shall foresee it, and we will depart.’ He looked at Vader, adding, ‘with the boy.’ They crossed a corridor and began winding through the passages that would lead to the final staircase to the complex’s ground floor. ‘I have seen no such threat. Fortunate, as the failsafe will not work now.’

 

-

 

They continued to weave through the complex, Sidious explaining the great lengths he had gone to (and the intergalactic extradition and cyber-terrorism directives he had overruled) to secure a being capable of creating such a destructive programme. It seemed that nobody would be likely to resume the work where it had been left off given the innate coding style and built-in protective blocks. 

 

Darth Sidious - Sheev Palpatine, the first Emperor of the Galactic Empire - had been prepared to destroy all non-Imperial coded technology with one command. Plunging every living creature not using the Empire's systems into powerless isolation. Tribalism, starvation and ultimately total civilizational disintegration would have followed. This approach to power - to overcome through crippling all possible opposition rather than through amassing strength to oneself - was philosophically ... different to Vader's. 

 

Eventually they approached the chamber with the decommissioned droids Vader had noticed earlier. A mist now hung in the air, probably as a result of the much increased heat. The stench was also stronger. They began to cross the hall in the sweltering gloom.

 

Sidious had torn some of the more ragged or trailing ends of his robes away, and his light armour was more visible. It was entirely black, made up of banded leather with a metal chestplate and back. It was clearly the best credits could buy. He would be hard to kill with blasterfire even if it could reach him. Every now and again a shaft of weak light would highlight patterns or symbols scored into the surface.

 

Vader suddenly tensed, his mind bellowing at him from all directions – life forms, all around them. The second before he had sensed only the great dark presence of his master walking next to him, and now he sensed dozens of beings. 

 

The room was still. He cast about, and saw his master doing the same. With the Force he summoned his lightsaber to his hand and made to turn it on. Nothing happened. Shocked, he looked down, thumbing the activator again. Still it didn’t react, remaining a lifeless cylinder in his grip. Reaching into the mechanism with the Force, he explored the structure he knew so well, willing the crystal inside to bring the crimson blade leaping out. It responded, but the other components of the weapon seemed shot.

 

He saw that Sidious had experienced the same problem with both his weapons. He began to suspect that the odd orbit of the moon, and the influence of the system’s star on the atmosphere was having an effect on machinery and electronics, maybe even accounting for the sudden destruction of their spacecraft. There were no assailants visible however, and the mist was beginning to clear, so they pushed on.

 

Movement exploded to the right, dark glinting forms rushing out from the walls. What he had taken for deactivated droids were apparently sentinels, and as Vader and his master put their backs to each other and half-crouched, more and more of the things moved in from both sides to surround them.

 

One stepped forward. Its faceplate had stylised human eyes painted around the optical receptors, and was marked with a single red circle of old paint. ‘Why are – you here,’ it said in Basic. The speech seemed to be made up of a series of old recordings combined together from some sort of soundboard, rather than the expected tinny voice of a droid.

 

‘Are there any ships bunkered here?’ Vader responded.

 

The expressionless faceplate tilted. ‘The ship - you came – in – has been disabled,’ it uttered.

He raised a hand, pointing a hectoring finger at the droid. ‘Tell me where we can find transport offworld.’

 

‘If – we are awake – then not anywhere on – this moon.’

 

Darth Sidious spoke. ‘Explain!’

 

This response seemed prepared, as if it was a full recording. ‘Our sleep has lasted many standard centuries. Our awakening at intervals enables us to learn of what has happened during our slumber. When the moon is brought into irregular orbit and swings closest to this system’s sun, temperature readings activate our processors, and the cryogenic system is powered down.’

 

A click, then it said, ‘Later in the history of this moon, other effects of this orbital path include negative influences on electronics, vehicles and weaponry, and eventually living things. Our life support systems use a low enough power charge that we are not affected.’

 

Sidious had stood motionless, taking this in. Vader had been studying the thing in front of them, noting a bulge at the torso, and eerily familiar tubing and wires snaking between it and the mask-like faceplate. The limbs meanwhile were elongated, skeletal arms and legs. The choking smell was stronger now.

 

He knew what stood before him. These weren’t droids. They were cyborgs, like him. Organic remains preserved in some sort of cryogenic stasis and reanimated periodically with the help of some low-powered sentinel intelligence. Disgust rose in him.

 

‘Who are you – and what is – your purpose here?’

 

‘I am the Galactic Emperor and I need transport off this ball of dirt instantly,’ grated Sidious, his curled lip and bared teeth showing that he had also deduced the true nature of these potential hostiles.

 

‘You – rule the galaxy? We have studied long and - decided that – for one man to control so many – is an abomination. You may not leave. You are – unarmed. Surrender yourselves to our custody.’

 

‘A Sith is never unarmed,’ growled Sidious. He flung out his hands, and two of the cyborgs in front of him were suddenly twisted into themselves, the metal of their torso crushing whatever creature had been clinging to life inside. Snarling, he reached an arm out to either side, whereupon two more of the things buckled.

 

Vader, filled with hatred, grabbed the cyborg that had spoken and made to tear it in two. As he did so the creature reached down to its right leg and drew out a rusted but wicked-looking blade which it stabbed down into Vader’s upper arm. The point pushed through thick armour and implant to the flesh that still lived below, as if it knew where machine ended and man began. Vader howled in rage more than pain, digging his fingers into the cyborg’s joints and ripping it apart in a thrashing motion. Without wondering or caring if the thing in the now immobilised torso still lived, he pulled the blade from his arm. Each of the things now held decrepit knives, so he changed tactics and began unleashing blasts of the Force, sending one after another crashing to their backs. He then began using the Force to pull piping, beams and other heavy objects out of the walls and ceiling, bringing his hands down as if striking with invisible hammers to send the objects crushing and impaling the cyborgs he had felled.

 

He gloried in unfettering his power. I am not like these wretches. This armour gives me strength. Theirs is a coffin.

 

‘Lord Vader!’

 

He swung about to see his master surrounded by mangled metal and low heaps of something dark that might have been organic. Sidious’ eyes blazed in his hollowed face. ‘We must leave.’ He pointed to Vader’s chest, and the dark lord looked down to see sparks spitting from the panel. The charge for his cybernetic components was low indeed, but it was certainly more sophisticated than that of the natives – if they were or had ever been indigenous to this moon – and the suit might soon suffer the same fate as their ships. Leaving Vader as defenseless as the cyborgs he had just laid waste to.

 

No. Not defenseless. For my weapon is the Force. With it I shall kill every single one of these creatures. With it I shall rule the galaxy alongside my son. It is time to leave this place indeed.

 

He turned wordlessly, finding the way out blocked once more by cyborgs. There seemed to be far more in stasis here than his first impression. He raised a hand and they parted like a rusted sea, thrust back into either side of the room as he and Sidious moved quickly between them.

 

-

 

Palpatine raised a hand as they moved through the door and it slammed shut behind them, blocking the cyborgs trailing them. He turned to Vader, whose cape was missing, armour dented and encrusted in filth. Vader’s shoulders visibly rose and fell, his respirator sonorous in the corridor. 

 

‘Once we are free of this insignificant speck of a moon I am marking it for obliteration by our new war platform.’

 

‘I agree, master.’ Vader’s voice was harsh and heavy, angrier than Palpatine had heard him in a long time.

 

‘Use your spite, my friend. Focus. Turn your mind to our escape and this rock will soon be a forgotten asteroid field.’

 

Vader reached up and pulled a slim length of piping from the bulkhead. It snapped off with a loud metallic thunk, creating a vicious sharpened point. He hefted his makeshift weapon and turned to the Emperor. ‘The atmosphere of this planet has destroyed most active electronics and machinery with major power signatures. We must find a hangar and hope there are powered down or low-powered craft on standby.’

 

‘Good. I will need your mechanic’s eye, Lord Vader.’

 

Not being surrounded by Stormtroopers, officers, advisers and others had brought a pond-like stillness to Palpatine’s thoughts. The lust for power that drove him was uncluttered by the hundred demands that usually filtered through at any one time - try as he might to reserve his deepest energies for his study of the dark side. His sole intent now was to escape this moon, and return to the centre of his Empire, fully focused on the coming confrontation with Skywalker’s son above the forest moon. Moreover, he foresaw that he would have no need of a failsafe with Vader at his side, and that the Skywalker boy could be lured into seeking out his father without any need for capture. The dark side surrounded him, and he saw clearly.

 

-

 

An hour later a rusted double door exploded violently from its hinges to collapse inwards, and two scorched and dirty figures in black armour walked into the hangar beyond. The heat had only grown worse and much of the thin brush near the installation had burst into low flames, reeds of smoke starting to choke the air.

 

The atmosphere was foul by now. Vader’s breathing thundered through the small hangar and wisps of smoke hovered up from his external respirator. Dried blood was on his left arm and his chest panel now spat sparks intermittently. His body, kept alive artificially by the best implants and enhancements technology provided, was starting to weaken in places. For the past hour he had been silent as he kept himself in constant communion with the dark side, a hot stream of rage surrounding and permeating his being. It gave him strength, and by the time they had arrived at the fourth hangar they had scoured for working vehicles he had barely thought about it nor broken his stride as he’d raised his hand to send the doors flying apart.

 

The air of the hangar was close and rank. Scattered around the floor were the dome and ambulatory components of an astromech droid that had clearly suffered the same fate as the other electronic equipment on the moon. Inside were two battered transports. Vader made for the one to his right with hardly a glance at the other. As the Emperor turned, hands at his sides, palms up, to survey their retreat, Vader began inspecting the controls and cockpit of the ship, before walking around its bulk to examine the engines and chassis. 

 

It would do, for a short trip. The system’s overseer had patrol ships parked at checkpoints nearby. The question was whether it would survive being switched on in whatever combination of magnetic disturbance and heat radiation was affecting everything else. 

 

He turned to his master to see his hands raise slowly, and an instant later saw cracks appearing in the ground outside. All at once a pit yawned open fifty metres from the hangar, with totaled speeders, repulsorlifts, construction equipment and an outhouse being swallowed up as it widened. A deafening ringing and hammering reached him then, and the lip of the pit was suddenly alive with the half-alive cyborg creatures from earlier. Each held the end of weighty metal chains. Fifty, then a hundred of them.

 

As one they turned toward Vader and Sidious but did not approach.

 

Eventually one, identical to the others, walked to the hangar and stood warily opposite Sidious. Its face was marked with three red circles. When it spoke, the message was once again an entire recording. ‘Our people once inhabited this moon in our millions when it was lush and verdant. Our best preserved themselves as you see before you, and entered cryogenic sleep that we might periodically awaken and continue our education. When we awoke the first time our people were gone. Our planet’s orbit had changed and desolated the land. We were made unable to communicate with the rest of the galaxy.’ A click, then, ‘We knew we might grow tired of this half-life without the joy of sharing our wisdom with our descendants. We have built a failsafe within the very rock of this moon for the day that we are able to pass on our knowledge, so that we can rest permanently. The labyrinths and tunnels through which we could move across almost the entire moon have been rigged during one of our previous awakenings, years, centuries or millennia ago - we cannot say.’

 

The piecemeal speech returned then. ‘We have decided – that – removing you from your – tyrannical – position of power – is worth – sacrificing – our ancient intent.’

 

Stood just behind him now, Vader couldn’t see Sidious’ reaction. Then the Sith lord said, in a low voice, ‘Meaning?’

 

‘Apocalypse.’

 

The being raised a hand in signal, and the hundred or so behind it heaved as one at their chains. As if in response, the chains were jerked back down from their thin metal fingers to race down into the pit, and were then snapped to right and left.

 

Vader had seen enough. He began to run towards the creatures, the length of pipe he had left lying by the entry to the ship’s cockpit flying into his grasp as he did so.

 

By the time he reached the nearest of the things it was raised above his head, and he began bringing it down in ferocious blows to each side as he slowed and eventually stopped to stand in their midst. He could hear one after another being imploded by Sidious nearby. Two of them made to run from him and closer to the pit, where the chains were still rattling and hissing. He reached out a hand. As they sailed through the air toward him he brought the pipe close to his chest and then swept it out for a backhand blow that splintered both creatures.

 

A great rumbling and vibrating then surrounded them, and the attention of each of the cyborgs snapped towards the thrashing chains many of them still held. Even as Vader continued to smash one after another of them into the ground they watched the chains and the pit as if mesmorized. Eventually he stopped and turned to see that Sidious had ceased his onslaught as well, and was braced in a crouch as he looked around. 

 

The pit began to widen further and the chains seemed to carve through the earth, throwing up fountains of dust and dirt, and great detonations sounded in the distance. Vader looked beyond the scene in front of him and froze – a range of lunar mountains in the distance was rippling, and as he watched they began to sink down under the horizon. Whatever the locals’ failsafe was, whatever network of tunnels they had collapsed with their complicated pulley system, it might actually bring the satellite apart underneath them. There would be no time to finish this fight and then repair the transport in peace.

 

Sidious had realised this as well – the next moment he was urging Vader to the transport, his voice calm and steady, clear in Vader’s ears despite the distance between them and the deafening roar that now came from the ground beneath them.

 

He marched toward the ship without comment, turning his head as he went to see Sidious plant his feet in front of the hangar and begin squeezing one fist then the other. Each time his fingers bunched another creature would stagger before being twisted into scrap metal and fluids as if by an invisible trash compactor.

 

He set to at the console in the transport’s cockpit.

 

-

 

Palpatine stood in the middle of a plain of wreckage and carnage. Of the hundred or so cyborgs that they had confronted minutes ago only two dozen remained. The rest were… dead? No longer a problem, at any rate.

 

He had refrained from summoning lightning from the Force, even though it might have allowed him to end this confrontation almost instantly, hot chains of crackling energy coursing from one cyborg to another in the blink of an eye. But the risk that such a violent electrical charge would cause some unpleasant reaction with the satellite’s atmosphere was too great, and he had set to systematically crushing their opponents. Now that Vader was occupied with the ship he resolved to fell the last few of the creatures. His armour was smeared and splashed, his eyes flashing red, and the rags of his cape smoking where they had briefly caught fire in the unnatural heat. At that moment the things turned as one from the pit, seeming to consider their job done, and advanced at a run. The Emperor bared his teeth in a snarl and raised an arm skyward.

 

Two, then a third, then a fourth and fifth collapsed to the ground as if stomped under some enormous foot, and then the rest were upon him. Palpatine ducked the swing of a skinny robotic arm, battered aside a thrust knife with his armoured left forearm, and with a summoning of power as he lifted his right hand, sent the mechanical limbs and head of a cyborg blasting away from its torso. His left hand grasped the air and a rusted knife dropped nearby flew to it, which he then used to stab at the torsos nearby.

 

Only four of the things remained standing when the pit beyond seemed to groan, and then yawn to engulf the entire work facility beyond, the dormitories, power plant and staff buildings disappearing into blackness. Great cracks opened into chasms in all directions. Miraculously the hangar and the ground he stood on remained. The four cyborgs remained too, and he flicked his hand to send them flying off into the abyss.

 

At that moment Vader was at his side. Grit and earth had been blown into the crevices of his faceplate and his chest panel had begun to smoke. His breathing was erratic and when he spoke, his voice was harsh with effort. ‘It can take off, but the design is dated. There’s no way to ramp up smoothly. The ignition will probably destroy the ship.’

 

The ground was trembling beneath them. Palpatine said, ‘Get to the cockpit and be ready to engage the engines.’

 

For a moment it seemed like Vader wasn’t going to obey. Then he turned silently and walked back to the ship.

 

-

 

Vader sat in the cockpit, his hands ready at the control panel as if to make the necessary arrangements to bring the engines into cycle and lift off. But he waited. If it was suicide that Sidious intended, Vader would make sure the Sith lord didn’t miss his chance.

 

Then the hangar swung round in front of the viewport and understanding dawned. As the ship lifted from the ground and floated through the wreckage of the hangar doors, he saw his master stood with his hands raised, eyes closed as the ground around him shook and crumbled. As he watched, the hangar itself bucked and then slid into the ground as if it was a stricken yacht sinking into an ocean. The view widening, he could see the landscape for hundreds of kilometers, all of it in chaos, the complicated chain and tunnel based armageddon swallowing hillocks and spitting sublunary rock up to a surface it hadn’t seen in millennia. 

 

At 20000ft he no longer saw the Emperor. He is there. Down in the fires and smoke of this dying moon. 

 

Vader began to engage the engines. The Emperor would never sacrifice himself for another living being, and he himself still lived as the ship continued to crest gently into the thick oily clouds of the collapsing satellite. But what if Palpatine could be abandoned?

 

His hands drifted down from the controls. Why wait to see whether the son of Skywalker chose supremacy or death? With the old manipulator destroyed, the path to a galaxy shaped by Vader and his son was clear. How much greater the lure of the dark side, then. The outstretched hand will promise the one thing Luke is most eager for. Not apprenticeship, but family. Not servitude but partnership.

 

For the perpetuation of peace in the known galaxy, it had to be so. Vader’s hands flicked back to the control panel, priming the ship to dart out of the atmosphere and toward the overseer’s fleet contingent, preparing missives of the Emperor’s demise in his head.

 

The ship shook then, as if struck by lightning or some kind of refuse, and a vast dark presence bled into Vader’s conscience. Ambition fled like insects in the light. He turned. 

 

Visible through the cockpit’s entryway, Emperor Palpatine stood on the transport’s troop deck, next to the still open door. Dust poured from the threadbare rags of his cape, his armour steamed and his eyes gleamed sharply out from his dirt-smeared face. A triumphal leer hovered round his mouth, and his gaze rested on Vader. In a voice at once haggard with effort and resonant with the residual force of the dark side, he addressed his apprentice. 

 

‘Lord Vader. Bring the ship out of atmosphere and make contact with the system’s administrator.’

 

‘Yes, master.’

 

Vader’s gloved, cyborg-augmented fingers danced across the console, sealing the transport’s doors, and moments later the atmosphere disappeared from around the ship as if it was shaking off a sodden cloak. Blackness surrounded the viewport, and the only sound was the rhythmic rise and fall of the respirator.


End file.
